Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience behavioural and learning problems at home and at school, as well as a lack of self-control in their lives. We can take advantage of the evolution of new technologies to develop applications with the aim of enhancing and stimulating the learning process of children with ADHD. In addition, these applications may help teachers and therapists to track the progress of the children. In this paper, we present a novel software system with new interaction mechanisms with the aim of improving memory and attention in children with ADHD. The system is based on a set of collaborative games developed in a novel multi-device environment applying the distributed user interface paradigm together with tangible user interfaces (TUIs). The interaction with the system is very intuitive and simple as children interact directly with known physical objects used as TUIs instead of using the mouse and the keyboard. In this way, children can play while moving around the room and interact with the games that are projected on the wall.
Previous work demonstrated that there were differences between literate and comparable illiterate adult subjects. These differences were found in the performance on several tests and on patterns of activation on PET and fMRI. In the present study subjects that learned to read and to write in adulthood (being previously completely illiterate) were compared to controls, that is subjects that learned at school at the proper age. Magnetoencephalography was done while subjects were reading words. Results showed that, although the reading performance was the same in both groups while performing the task, the pattern of source distribution was different between groups. There were more late sources in right temporo-parietal areas of late literates compared to controls and more late sources in left inferior frontal cortex in control subjects. It is concluded that learning to read in adulthood is a process supported by different brain structures from the ones used when learning occurs at the proper age. This may suggest that the same task can be similarly performed by relying on diverse functional brain anatomic networks.
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